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Event

Performance Research Experiment #2.2

Jess Curtis/Gravity returns to the San Francisco performance scene in late January with Performance Research Experiment #2.2, a sinewy update of a piece that came to life in spring 2013 in both Berlin and San Francisco. At half its former running length, it's been significantly reconfigured to provide a more seamless and theatrical user experience.

Audiences will not only witness a rigorous yet personal examination into the impact of performanceas well as the sometimes confounding paradoxes that only the human heart seems capable of producingbut also be privy to the collection and on-stage streaming of quantifiable data in real time that measures the engagement and response of select audience members. Thus without setting a foot onstage the audience itself, either by being measured, or comparing themselves to those who are, become part of the machinery that moves the performance. With Jörg Müller and French media artist Yoann Trellu.

While measurement of the autonomic nervous system heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, etc., etc., have been used in the past to test movie and television audience response in research settings, the use of it as part of a performance, one that allows the part of the audience not being measured to compare themselves to that segment which is, is a much less predictable and less well-tread phenomenon.

"Trying to make 'art' out of data may seem a little antithetical, but our success touring Performance Research Experiment #1 over the last several years, made us believe in the friction between the intuitive and the analytical. This most recent 'software update' removes some dramaturgical glitches, has stylish new updated graphics and sound, and runs much faster for a generally greatly enhanced user experience."